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digital fine art photography

Dear Asher,

all I am saying (this is just my personal opinion Asher, hence vaild!) is:

1. The very concept of art defies definition

2. The Culture Industry needs a kick up the arse

----

1.1 In the attempt alone we stranglehold art.
1.2 Art has to be free.
1.3 Art is created for the people, not for an elite group of over educated Investors.

1.1.1
Art has context, this in itself is all the definition that is needed. The context is the time the artist was active in. Art critics and art institutions apply a set of parameters that they see fit to describe and judge art.

Most important, we all are political beings, whether we like it or not. Hence, as an ethical demand on the artist, "Whereof we can speak, thereof we must not be silent!"

We all exist in a particular kind of social world. So does the artist, hence his work is in context, the interpretation is individual perception, nothing more, nothing less.

1.2.1
No explanation needed in my book!

1.3.1
The motivation of the artist is in context of his personal history and again, the time he lives in.

The motivation of the culture industry is an entirely different cattle of fish. It follows market rules and is driven by a subset of educated art marketing people who constructed a system build on capitalist structures.

2.1.1
Food critics and art critics.... they have a lot in common. ;)

P.S.
Bill Gates bought "The Codex Leicester" for 30 million USD and sends it around the world for people to be seen. Is Bill Gates an artist? No, but he did something very good in that respect, to a degree, he gave it back to the people, where it belongs!

P.P.S.

Well, may be that much...

1.2.1
Miyamoto Musashi wrote in his "Go Rin No Sho" (The book of five Rings)
" Wisdom has existence, principle has existence, the Way has existence, spirit is nothingness."

.... art is nothingness, hence free ....
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Hi Georg,

Here the stuff seems to hit the fan, but lets see if we can get though this, one point at a time. Actually we will not get to your point # 2. since this is always true and moreover it's fun.

Be patient as we explore this and don't take offense. I take what you say seriously and so my answers are thought through as best as I can. I have to look through your statements and wonder why they seem to be fed by some ideology of class struggle. In any case, I am aware of that political elephant might be in the room.

Still, let's proceed with caution. First I'll state what art might be. This is not a definition, but part of a description of what it appears to be. I can give some pretty detailed parameters. Here is just a partial set:

Premise: I look at art as a valuable creative tool of mankind that perhaps has the potential of helping us. It is an externalization of imaginative concepts into some physical form and made by individuals for their own purposes. In some way, the artist crafts the internal thoughts he or she has into the physical art form in such away as it evokes an experience in people that is unique and mimics, signals or implies real or imaginary things that may actually not be there in or anywhere near the work of art. The artist gets satisfaction and even has reinvoked within him/herself an orchestration of constructed cascades of emotions and thoughts by completing the work and experiencing it. We ourselves may or may not understand, appreciate it or be moved like the artist. We may or may not be ready for it. We might be culturally not attuned or else not educated sufficiently to appreciate it. We may think over it or below it and so fail to be moved. The work does not require us to like it. It belongs to no one unless that is the will of the artist. Art is an externalization of an individuals ideas. By making the art, the artist does not necessarily share it with anyone and it's character of art is still intact. We can hope for disclosure, but that cannot be a rule or art itself would be damaged in doing so.

Now here's something interesting about art. We may love it for insights and appreciations totally foreign to the artist in the first place! That again is still valid. Art is a complex tool for man and can be worked at both ends of the "making" and "experiencing" of it's meaning and value to us in serving us with beauty or just testing out imagined possibilities, a kind of cognitive gymnasium.

Now lets get to your points. If I go astray, let me know!


Dear Asher,

all I am saying (this is just my personal opinion Asher, hence valid!) is:

1. The very concept of art defies definition

2. The Culture Industry needs a kick up the arse

----

1.1 In the attempt alone we stranglehold art.
1.2 Art has to be free.
1.3 Art is created for the people, not for an elite group of over educated Investors.

Hi Georg,

"The very concept of art defies definition": Well that's a fine statement and appears to rise above us like the banner of some wise knight. However, it's really an unexamined assumption or assertion or even a cop-out. Still, I really don't mind us not defining it, at least for the moment. However, we might need to return to it so we can know what is it of ours that you might wish to give away to "the" people, who ever your "the" defines them to be.

If we make rules for art, then we create a stranglehold, however if we define what sort of phenomenon art is, then we are not necessarily doing any such damage!

"Art has to be free", again is another banner of war! Once more I ask, "Why"? Hunting is not free! People get maimed or die! Getting a wife is often not free: one might have to steal her, pay her father or give her gifts, but she is not free! So why should art be free. Yes it sounds friendly and intuitively good that art should be free, (and I support the idea of free access to art), but not that it should, a priori be free. There is no logical foundation for that!

"Art is created for the people, not for an elite group of over educated Investors." You can say this about your own art and the art of people who make the same commitment to the particular people designated by your use of the definite article, "the". You have a right to designate any people you wish to be the beneficiaries of your own labor. But I really don't know who "the" people are!

Also let’s beware of dismissing whole groups of people, segregated by us and herded into a cattle car of contempt. Why are "they" "too educated"? Come on Georg, isn't that elitist on your part! Surely anyone progressive, who loves nature and life, cannot turn his back on learning and knowledge. That's what the Khmer Rouge did when they eventually carried this to its nth logical conclusion and exterminated everyone, men women and children, anyone with education.

I cannot take you seriously on this. Yes, you can seem to detest capitalism* but that must be realized without going on the same mistaken paths of the totalitarian slogan-directed regimens. It leads to tragedy.

Asher

* I myself don't detest capitalism; rather it's excesses and reliance of a ponzi scheme of continued growth of markets which is destructive to the planet itself. Capitalism is a good engine for progress and one needs to make sure it does not grind everything up in its path. Still, it's the best way for harnessing the creative power of people. When they are rich, they can be taxed. Capitalism is a product of human nature. In it's absence, the most perfect rules will always be bypassed by the functionaries of the new society who will become corrupt.
 

doug anderson

New member
"Only when we are thinking on that which cannot be thought out are we really thinking." Goethe, Elective Affinities

Or, as Donald Barthelme wrote in his great essay, art comes from not-knowing. The art of the culture industry is thought out in advance in terms of what buttons it will push in an audience that may or may not exist, that is, one that is conditioned to a particular iconography that makes them buy things.

In my professional writing, I run into publishers who want to tailor what I write to a zeitgeist that may or may not exist, or which, upon apprehension, is already dissolving into whatever's next.

Ironically, what makes art good is its quality of having been brought from not-knowing directly into the artist's mind. After that, simulacra. The very thing that makes the art appealing can be destroyed by assuming that something can be repeated over and over simply because its first instantiation was successful.

This is what businessmen at the dissemination end of art don't understand. This is why much of electronic media is so empty.
 
First of all, personally, I do not create art!

As you know, I attempt landscape photography, which means I learn about it, and then learn how to print it to a point where I am satisfied with the output. This, I do not consider art.

Second, I value your opinion, I was only sharing my own opinion on art and art industry itself.

I cannot take you seriously on this.

No need!

Be patient as we explore this and don't take offense.

None taken!

"Art has to be free", again is another banner of war! Once more I ask, "Why"?

For example, the entire collection of art belonging to the vatican should be taken away from them.

True Art of historical value does not belong in collectors hands or to privileged groups in power.

It belongs to the people, which is each and everyone of us, mankind.

Hunting is not free!

Sure is not, Artemis requires tribute. ;)

When they are rich, they can be taxed.

Yeah but, when they are rich, they don't pay taxes! ;)
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
So Doug,

We know what makes for poor art then. We understand the manipulation of our minds by the media companies.

But what then makes for good art, art that we value after the built in bias is no longer relevant? Does it matter that such and such deity is assumed to be real by the painter? Does it matter that the block of blank stone has no artist-crafted form and merely is what happened to be delivered that day from the quarry?

Maybe if we can know what the activity of making and experiencing art is for, what purpose if any it might serve in man's biology, his evolution and survival, then we could understand what might be good art.

So, Doug, what do you think art might do for us?

Asher
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
First of all, personally, I do not create art!
Perhaps not! However, you might be in error. I don't think it may be necessary for you to know you are creating art. For example, you may not know your are getting a woman to fall in live with you. Yet this might happen as a result of what you do. When your picture perturb a viewers dogmas and assumptions or leads them to consider new possibilities, that process may be, in the experiencing of your work, a proving ground for your work as art. I'm not sure it has to be your intent. Rather, by creating a beautiful scene, you may have inadvertently also delivered a gymnasium for their minds. In that, I believe you have made art. If, I'm correct, art is made by the artist but also realized by experience, two sides of a coin. Anyway, that's my concept of art.

As you know, I attempt landscape photography, which means I learn about it, and then learn how to print it to a point where I am satisfied with the output. This, I do not consider art.
That's why, perhaps we do need rich people who can afford to take a risk and by your work merely because they love it. don't sell yourself short. Maybe you do make art. Time will tell.

For example, the entire collection of art belonging to the vatican should be taken away from them.
True Art of historical value does not belong in collectors hands or to privileged groups in power.
It belongs to the people, which is each and everyone of us, mankind.
At least in america, the public and large donors do support the art galleries. Rich people collect art and then a lot of this is turned over to a museum as a massive gift for everyone to enjoy. If you come to Los Angeles, for example, you will discover that you can visit the Getty museum and it's always free. You could go everyday for a month and still not really get through everything in their collection. Most galleries depend on and receive massive donations of money and art from the wealthy and the entire public benefit.

There are also outreach programs to bring in youths from the inner city, the poor areas and the under-served communities so that the museums and concert halls are made open to them. We have not reached any utopia, but our society is effective at harnessing the good will, education and articulate voices of an elite bunch of mostly women volunteers to steer this process in every city in the USA.

By contrast, in France for example, museums are mostly State institutions and subservient to and dependent on government policy and largesse. This in effect means that in France, apart from some excellent private museums, most of the state museums could be said to have one grand director. By contrast, in the USA, major museums are all on their own, so to speak. While they might get some grants from the government, most of the finding comes from private individuals. People are very generous here.

There is not so much a lack of access to fine art, but rather a heterogeneity in interest in some communities where the art may be outside their scope of values. However, given the opportunity to visit a museum, these same people will be moved and inspired to produce their own work.

Sure is not, Artemis requires tribute. ;)
No I don't, LOL!



Yeah but, when they are rich, they don't pay taxes! ;)

Another joke!

Asher
 

doug anderson

New member
So Doug,

We know what makes for poor art then. We understand the manipulation of our minds by the media companies.

But what then makes for good art, art that we value after the built in bias is no longer relevant? Does it matter that such and such deity is assumed to be real by the painter? Does it matter that the block of blank stone has no artist-crafted form and merely is what happened to be delivered that day from the quarry?

Maybe if we can know what the activity of making and experiencing art is for, what purpose if any it might serve in man's biology, his evolution and survival, then we could understand what might be good art.

So, Doug, what do you think art might do for us?

Asher

Asher: good questions. I could start by saying that art comes from not-knowing. It is -- and I use this word with great trepidation -- a "spiritual" process by which we are tempted to exceed our limitations and be made to feel whole again. A great painting or piece of music does this. It says to me: you have been seeing the world this way until you no longer notice it, now, try it THIS way." All real art is political because it brings into question all rhetorics and received ideas, all calcified language and belief systems, and makes us desire something greater than our own vision. It is the opposite of systems of representation designed to promote canned ideas. In any great work of art is an unanswered question. Rilke says "learn to love the questions." The answers are much less interesting. Finally, a great work of art should make you feel glad to be alive.
 

doug anderson

New member
Disclaimer

My opinions do not come from my photography: I am an amateur. They are more informed by my long dues-paying and professional experience as a writer. If someone were to compare the photography that I have shared on this site to my opinions, they might think I was a poser.

In humility,

Doug
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
My opinions do not come from my photography: I am an amateur. They are more informed by my long dues-paying and professional experience as a writer. If someone were to compare the photography that I have shared on this site to my opinions, they might think I was a poser.

In humility,

Doug
Hi Doug,

While being humble is a very good virtue, there is no need for you to feel any humilty in my humble (pun intended) opinion. I really enjoy reading your posts here no matter how your posted pictures might look like and by doing so, I also learn from you. That is what really matters :)

Cheers,
 
Hi Doug,

While being humble is a very good virtue, there is no need for you to feel any humilty in my humble (pun intended) opinion. I really enjoy reading your posts here no matter how your posted pictures might look like and by doing so, I also learn from you. That is what really matters :)

Cheers,

.....Ditto!
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Asher: good questions. I could start by saying that art comes from not-knowing. It is -- and I use this word with great trepidation -- a "spiritual" process by which we are tempted to exceed our limitations and be made to feel whole again.

Doug,

First, that assertion is interesting. I do not see that concept yet as any required part of a description of art. However, I'm open to such an idea. Tell me, without further thinking, when you conceived this, it was referring to the artist or the perspective of our appreciation of his or her work.

doug anderson;56101A great painting or piece of music does this. It says to me: you have been seeing the world this way until you no longer notice it said:
Would you substitute, "might" for "does" in "A great painting of piece of music does this"? Then, I'd like it for my own use too!

All real art is political because it brings into question all rhetorics and received ideas, all calcified language and belief systems, and makes us desire something greater than our own vision. It is the opposite of systems of representation designed to promote canned ideas. In any great work of art is an unanswered question. Rilke says "learn to love the questions." The answers are much less interesting.
Once again, I think you might have taken a part of what the best art might do for us to apply it to all art in it's process from it's inception even before we have framed our intent. Otherwise it fits in perfectly with what two constructs I have proposed previously:

1. A Cathedral of the mind: Actually my hijacking and personal application of the term from Daniel Sperber on the issue of "Relevance". In the artist, I consider that we have a major enterprise of cognition where resources from memory, hard wired basic responses from each stage of our ontogony, associations from our experience, fables, mythologies, proverbs, fashion, history, songs, failures joys, fears, ambitions and every other human experience in the massive library of every level of our brains, are exhibited for interest, amusement and advantage. From this, rare associations give relevance to our imagination and we then work further on this nascent concept. As the idea takes some form, it is enjoyed and played with and extended as more possibilities attach.

This whole process is disciplined. It usually requires an inciting incident. So it's perhaps akin to having a question and then going to the library, or finding a gold and realizing one can buy happiness for someone in need of medicines. The stimulus provides a focused initiation of a performance in the Cathedral of our mind. At some point, the performance of the assembled form is so strong that an imperative wells up to externalize this imaginative experience in some physical form so as to demonstrate and extend its power. When realized the unique internal and personal experience become engraved somehow in a physical form. As I have posited previously from observation, the process of physically making art also involves the iterative impacting of the experiencing of the objective existence of the nascent form on the very nature of the internal constructs being expressed. When successful, the artist will hopefully cause to be re-invoked at any time the feelings, fascination thrills and significance of the work. All that will be required is to experience the work with the senses and the performance will be replayed. Furthermore, as in the internal version, the experience will be modified by all the circumstances that now surround the work and the artist.

2. Gymnasium for the Mind: Here we describe the rare possibilities and powerful potential of some art in some people that go beyond the physicality and sensotic experience of the work.

While so captured, a ghost like space is created within the minds of others coming to the work where some of our own ideas, fantasies and dogmas are played with and even put to a test. Thus, in each of our private minds we can meander without cost, using only our personalities, emotions, and culture to look at aspects our toolset for dealing with life. In this manner, what is assumed to be certain is explored and perhaps, in some of us who are sufficiently insightful and open, re-calibrated in relevance and consequences. All the while, the matter of the art, its esthetic magnetism, maintains our interest and fascination so that we'll linger and enjoy the work for some reason or other.

Finally, a great work of art should make you feel glad to be alive.

I'd rather say that "A great work should mesmerize us with some magic spell so we go between, behind, above and below, far beyond the physicality of what is experienced by the senses, so that we open up a space where we might find something more about what might be significant to us, good or bad.

In simple terms, the memorizations would be entertainment, but that alone is not enough to render artistic work to the level of art. There must also be the circumstances for some contemplation or else the enjoyment, perhaps positive to us, horror (bringing on a rush of adrenaline and arousal) or the sensuality of beauty that seduces us, are all merely just what they seem to be at first and no more, at least that time and in that circumstance.

I hope some of these qualifications and ideas draw resonance with your own feelings and thoughts. Anyway, my perspective is now open for your consideration. Doug, Georg, and others, feel free to challenge me or add your own ideas as I value your point of view and insight.

Asher

*Sensotic is a descriptive term I have defined and coined for experience of the sensuality of beauty, horror or eruptive or socially constructed emotion that draws us into itself to bathe in the feelings so induced. This experience is seductive before and beyond the boundaries of obvious logic and intellectual argument. However, it not necessarily erotic, good, bad or a route to be closer to a God or some kind "cosmic consciousness". The feeling however, might be enjoyed as any of these depending or the cultural training of the individual.
 
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doug anderson

New member
Doug,

First, that assertion is interesting. I do not see that concept yet as any required part of a description of art. However, I'm open to such an idea. Tell me, without further thinking, when you conceived this, it was referring to the artist or the perspective of our appreciation of his or her work.


Asher: they are one in the same. If the art is done well, the viewer/listener/reader has something of the same internal synthesis as the creator. An artist is “showing the way” to a certain kind of mental/physical experience. Descartes’ subject/object dichotomy does not apply here, because the experience is gestalt, something more along the lines of what Heidegger was talking about. However, it is not limited to that, because there is a creative response to the creative act that is particular to the experiencer.


1. A Cathedral of the mind: Actually my hijacking and personal application of the term from Daniel Sperber on the issue of "Relevance". In the artist, I consider that we have a major enterprise of cognition where resources from memory, hard wired basic responses from each stage of our ontogony, associations from our experience, fables, mythologies, proverbs, fashion, history, songs, failures joys, fears, ambitions and every other human experience in the massive library of every level of our brains, are exhibited for interest, amusement and advantage. From this, rare associations give relevance to our imagination and we then work further on this nascent concept. As the idea takes some form, it is enjoyed and played with and extended as more possibilities attach.

This whole process is disciplined. It usually requires an inciting incident. So it's perhaps akin to having a question and then going to the library, or finding a gold and realizing one can buy happiness for someone in need of medicines. The stimulus provides a focused initiation of a performance in the Cathedral of our mind. At some point, the performance of the assembled form is so strong that an imperative wells up to externalize this imaginative experience in some physical form so as to demonstrate and extend it's power. That we, the realized unique internal experience is engraved somehow in a physical form. When successful, the artist will hopefully cause to be reinvoked at any time the feelings, fascination thrills and significance of the work. All that will be required is to experience the work with the senses and the performance will be replayed. Furthermore, as in the internal version, the experience will be modified by all the circumstances that now surround the work and the artist.

I think we are talking about the same thing, really. The cultural materials the artist has assimilated, his social and psychological predisposition, a self that has been constructed according to a particular life, become materials in the making/experiencing of a work of art, certainly. However, the manner in which the synthesis occurs is according to the degree of talent and imagination in the artist, and the way that it is produced becomes a matter of craft. Another way of saying this is that no two crystals are alike, and will capture and reflect light differently.


2. Gymnasium for the Mind: Here we describe the rare possibilities and powerful potential of some art in some people which go beyond the physicality and sensotic* experience of the work.

While so captured, a ghost like space is created within the minds of others coming to the work where some of our own ideas, fantasies and dogmas are played with and even put to a test. Thus, in each of our private minds we can meander without cost, using only our personalities, emotions, culture to look at aspects our toolset for dealing with life. In this manner, what is assumed to be certain is explored and perhaps, in some of us who are sufficiently insightful and open, re-calibrated in relevance and consequences. All the while, the matter of the art, its esthetic magnetism, maintains our interest and fascination so that we'll linger and enjoy the work for some reason or other.


I like the above paragraph very much and find it not antithetical to what I’ve been writing.
Quote:


I'd rather say that "A great work should mesmerize us with some magic spell so we go between, behind, above and below, far beyond the physicality of what is experienced by the senses, so that we open up a space where we might find something more about what might be significant to us, good or bad.

In simple terms, the mesmerization would be entertainment, but that alone is not enough to render artistic work to the level of art. There must also be the circumstances for some contemplation or else the enjoyment, perhaps positive to us, horror (bringing on a rush of adrenaline and arousal) or the sensuality of beauty that seduces us, are all merely just what what they seem to be at first and no more, at least that time and in that circumstance.

I hope some of these qualifications and ideas draw resonance with your own feelings and thoughts. Anyway, my perspective is now open for your consideration. Doug, Georg, and others, feel free to challenge me or add your own ideas as I value your point of view and insight.



Asher, the word “mesmerization” troubles me because it could also apply the crowd manipulation techniques of politicians. Think of the films of Leni Reifmensthal (sp?) which documented Hitler’s theatrics.
Brecht, while being a considerable artist, also included a dialectical fail-safe device in his writings, whereby the experiencer was kept from slipping into a trance (veffremdungst effect)(sp?). He was fond of saying that to make art was to “make strange.” In other words you always see the thing recontexted to give it a new aspect.
I really like the metaphors you have used, and find them compatible with my thinking.

Cheers,

Doug
 
Think of the films of Leni Reifmensthal (sp?) which documented Hitler’s theatrics.
Brecht, while being a considerable artist, also included a dialectical fail-safe device in his writings, whereby the experiencer was kept from slipping into a trance (veffremdungst effect)(sp?). He was fond of saying that to make art was to “make strange.”

http://www.leni-riefenstahl.de/eng/bio.html

As for Brecht, I believe you refer to the "disassociation"? ....Verfremdungseffekt
 
The cultural materials the artist has assimilated, his social and psychological predisposition, a self that has been constructed according to a particular life, become materials in the making/experiencing of a work of art, certainly. However, the manner in which the synthesis occurs is according to the degree of talent and imagination in the artist, and the way that it is produced becomes a matter of craft. Another way of saying this is that no two crystals are alike, and will capture and reflect light differently. [/B]

Yeppers! :)

This in deed is common ground where I can sit down with you and Asher and raise a glas to toast you.

It is something I try to bring across since a long time on various occasions, we all are individuals, and as such we perceive things totally unique, because we are unique, nothing exists twice!

This goes so much deeper in deed, if only we could start to admire the differences instead of fearing them, we would make giant step forward.

To me this is a universal Law, woven into the fabric of our very existence.
 
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